Prostitution

For years, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart has grabbed headlines in his fight to get online classified ad sites to drop their adult services sections, which he says are a haven for pimps and human traffickers. But one of the websites recently in Dart's crosshairs, Backpage.com, is fighting back, arguing in federal court Thursday that the sheriff's successful efforts to get several major credit card companies to block their cards from being used to buy ads violate freedom of speech protections and have illegally decimated the site's business model. Lawyers for Backpage, which is similar to Craigslist, filed a lawsuit against Dart earlier this week asking U.S. District Judge John...

Related "Prostitution" Articles

Nelson Bernard Clifford, the repeat sex offender who won acquittals in four separate cases after he took the stand and said the alleged attacks were consensual, was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison Thursday by a judge who said he had exposed...

This roundup of crime briefs from around the area isn't meant to be a comprehensive compilation of Maryland crime news, but a snapshot of some of the newsworthy incidents from across our region.
Here's a look at some of the crime that's happened recently...

Howard County Police charged two men this week with soliciting prostitutes online, and warned would-be johns that they are watching closely.
Francis Gilbert Gomes, 57, of Laurel and Deangelo Deahmari Edwards, 21, of Waldorf were charged with solicitation...

Nelson Bernard Clifford, a convicted sex offender who has been acquitted in his last four sexual assault trials, took the stand in his own defense again Thursday, telling a jury that the encounter with his alleged victim was consensual.Clifford, 37,...

Federal authorities on Tuesday identified the driver killed while trying to ram a stolen SUV through a security checkpoint at the National Security Agency headquarters as a Baltimore resident with a criminal history for robbery and prostitution.
The...

Baltimore County detectives checked advertisements on the website Backpage.com this weekin a St. Patrick's Day prostitution sting that ended in the arrest of two men — one the son of a prominent Baltimore attorney — on human trafficking charges,...

Two men — one of them a former Temple running back who is the son of a prominent Baltimore lawyer — were charged with prostituting three underage teenagers, police said.
Matthew Warren Brown, 25, son of defense attorney Warren Brown, and Anthony Leon...

Joel Ward was standing in his favorite spot on the ice, which meant good fortune for the Washington Capitals.
Ward scored with 2:18 remaining in overtime to lift the visiting Capitals past the San Jose Sharks, 5-4, on Wednesday night.
"As soon as...

Baltimore hotels would be required to train their staffs to recognize signs of forced prostitution under proposed legislation that also would prohibit rooms from being rented for less than half a day.
City Councilman James B. Kraft said the anti-human...

Internet history on the phone of the man accused of killing Phylicia Barnes showed Web searches for forensic procedures and for books on high-profile killings such as the Casey Anthony and JonBenet Ramsey cases, a Baltimore police detective told jurors...

In news that must have left my friends at the New York Post -- never mind the gang at "The Daily Show" -- with a renewed confidence that ours is a just and beneficent God, the White House has been caught covering up a scandal...

When Evelyn Chumbow was a 9-year-old living in Cameroon in the 1990s, she was told she was going to America for a better life.
But when she arrived in Silver Spring, she got the exact opposite. Chumbow was taken from a life of freedom in Africa to one of...

The owner of two Columbia spas has been indicted on human trafficking and prostitution charges in connection with an alleged prostitution ring he ran out of the businesses, according to Howard County police.
Roberto F. Carrasco, 56, of the 200 block of...

Black- and copper-colored beads lay around a puddle of blood in a Northwest Baltimore alley where police said a transgender woman was killed early Wednesday in a crime that bore similarities to the slaying of another transgender woman last month.
...

Three men were arrested last week after they allegedly solicited sex from an undercover police officer during a daytime sting operation in Belcamp.
The Harford County Sheriff's Office ran the operation Friday in the area of the 1300 block of Riverside...

Baltimore FBI agents and local law enforcement officers said they rescued two Maryland girls who were being prostituted and arrested five suspects they said were sexually exploiting children.The recovery of the two girls, both 16, came as part of a...

A Towson woman will forfeit a building on Joppa Road where police say she ran a house of prostitution, but a deal struck with federal prosecutors allows her to keep five other properties in Baltimore.Di Zhang, 43, will also pay $325,000 as part of a...

Del. Jon Cardin rejected Thursday the endorsement of a Baltimore-based rapper after learning that the man who calls himself Ski Money is facing charges of human trafficking.
Cardin, a candidate for attorney general, said he knew nothing of the rapper's...

An Anne Arundel County jury has found an alleged brothel operator not guilty in the 2008 death of a man who prosecutors said was a rival in the Annapolis prostitution business.
On Friday, Kerlin Fuentes, 26, was found not guilty of first-degree and...

Opening arguments began Tuesday in the Annapolis trial of a man accused in a late night shooting nearly six years ago that left an alleged pimp dead and helped unravel a prostitution business in the state's capital city.
Ricardo Humberto Rivas-Ramirez...